CHAPTER XIII.

SOLOMON'S COURT AND KINGDOM.

1 Kings iv. 1-34.

"But what more oft in nations grown corrupt

And by their vices brought to servitude,

Than to love bondage more than liberty,

Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?"

Samson Agonistes.

When David was dead, and Solomon was established
on his throne, his first thoughts were
turned to the consolidation of his kingdom. He was
probably quite a youth.193193 Josephus, Antt., VIII. vii. 8. According to one tradition he lived
to fifty-three (Ewald, iii. 208), and was only twelve when he
succeeded David. He was not, nor did he ever
desire to be, a warlike prince; but he was compelled to
make himself secure from two enemies—Hadad and
Rezon—who began almost at once to threaten his
frontiers. Of these, however, we shall speak later on,
since it is only towards the close of Solomon's reign
that they seem to have given serious trouble. If the
second psalm is by Solomon it may point to some early
disturbances among heathen neighbours which he had
successfully put down.

The only actual expedition which Solomon ever
made was one against a certain Hamath-Zobah, to
which, however, very little importance can be attached.135
It is simply mentioned in one line in the Book of
Chronicles, and it is hard to believe—considering that
Rezon had possession of Damascus—that Solomon
was master of the great Hamath.1941942 Chron. viii. 3. Ewald thinks it is confirmed by 2 Kings xiv. 28,
where, however, the Hebrew is obscure. He made a material
alteration in the military organisation of his kingdom
by establishing a standing army of fourteen hundred
war-chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he
dispersed in various cities and barracks, keeping some
of them at Jerusalem.1951951 Kings x. 26.

In order to save his kingdom from attack Solomon
expended vast sums on the fortification of frontier
towns. In the north he fortified Hazor; in the north-west
Megiddo. The passes to Jerusalem on the west
were rendered safe by the fortresses at Upper and
Nether Bethhoron. The southern districts were overawed
by the building of Baalath and Tamar, "the
palm-city," which is described as "in the wilderness
in the land,"—perhaps in the desolate tract on the
road from Hebron to Elath.1961961 Kings ix. 18. Here the "Q'rî," the marginal, or "read" text,
has Tadmor (i.e., Palmyra), as also in 2 Chron. viii. 4. But this
Tamar (Ezek. xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28) is "in the land" on the south
border. In the Chronicles Tadmor is the right reading, for the
chronicler is speaking of Hamath-Zobah and the north. It is not
at all unlikely that Solomon also built Tadmor (Josephus, Antt.,
VIII. vi. 1) to protect his commerce on the route to the Euphrates. Movers thinks that
Hazezon-Tamar or Engedi is meant, as this town is
called Tamar in Ezek. xlvii. 19.

As the king grew more and more in power he gave
full reins to his innate love of magnificence. We can
best estimate the sudden leap of the kingdom into
luxurious civilisation if we contrast the royalty of Saul136
with that of Solomon. Saul was little more than a
peasant-prince, a local emîr, and such state as he had
was of the humblest description. But Solomon vied
with the gorgeous secular dynasts of historic empires.

His position had become much more splendid owing
to his alliance with the King of Egypt—an alliance of
which his humbler predecessors would scarcely have
dreamed. We are not told the name of his Egyptian
bride, but she must have been the daughter of one
of the last kings of the twenty-first Tanite dynasty—either
Psinaces, or Psusennes II.197197 The forty-fifth psalm is supposed by old interpreters to have been
an epithalamium on this occasion, but was probably much later.
Perhaps notices like 1 Kings iii. 1-3 (the Egyptian alliance), the
admonition in 1 Kings ix. 1-9 and the luxury described in x. 14-29,
are meant as warning notes of what follows in xi. 1-8 (the apostasy),
9-13 (the prophecy of disruption), and 14-43 (the concluding disaster). The dynasty had
been founded at Tanis (Zoan) about b.c. 1100 by an
ambitious priest named Hir-hor. It only lasted for five
generations. Whatever other dower Solomon received
with this Egyptian princess, his father-in-law rendered
him one signal service. He advanced from Egypt with
an army against the Canaanite town of Gezer, which
he conquered and destroyed.198198 Gezer is Abu-Shusheh, or Tell-el-Gezer, between Ramleh and
Jerusalem (Oliphant, Haifa, p. 253), on the lower border of
Ephraim. Ewald identifies it with Geshur, the town of Talmai,
Absalom's grandfather. See Lenormant, Hist. anc. de l'Orient., i. 337-43.
The genealogy of this dynasty is thus given by Brugsch-Bey (Gen.
Table iv.), Hist. of Egypt, vol. ii.:—
Hir-hor==Notem.
|
Piankhi.
|
Pinotem I.
|
+--------+---------+
| |
Pisebkhan I. Men-khepher-ra.
|
+-------------+----------+-----+
| | |
Pinotem II. Pisebkhan II. Ker'amat
(a daughter).
Solomon rebuilt it as137
an outpost of defence for Jerusalem. Further than
this the Egyptian alliance did not prove to be of much
use. The last king of this weak twenty-first dynasty was
succeeded b.c. 990 by the founder of a new Bubastite
dynasty, the great Shishak I. (Shesonk, Σεσόνχωσις),
the protector of Jeroboam and the plunderer of Jerusalem
and its Temple. Ker'amat, niece of the last king
of the dynasty, married Shishak, the founder of the new
dynasty, and was the mother of U-Sark-on I. (Zerah
the Ethiopian).

It has been a matter of dispute among the Rabbis
whether Solomon was commendable or blameworthy
for contracting this foreign alliance. If we judge him
simply from the secular standpoint, nothing could be
more obviously politic than the course he took. Nor
did he break any law in marrying Pharaoh's daughter.
Moses had not forbidden the union with an Egyptian
woman. Still, from the religious point of view, it was
inevitable that such a connexion would involve consequences
little in accordance with the theocratic ideal.
The kings of Judah must not be judged as though
they were ordinary sovereigns. They were meant to
be something more than mere worldly potentates. The
Egyptian alliance, instead of flattering the pride, only
wounded the susceptibilities of the later Jews. The
Rabbis had a fantastic notion that Shimei had been
Solomon's teacher, and that the king did not fall into
the error of wedding an alien199199 See Deut. xxiii. 7, 8. until Shimei had been
driven from Jerusalem.200200 Schwab's Berakhoth, p. 252; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud,
p. 25. In Sanhedrin, ff. 21, 22, there is another trace of the dislike with
which the marriage (though not forbidden, Deut. xxiii. 7, 8) was
regarded: "When Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, Gabriel descended and fixed a reed in the sea. A sandbank formed
around
it on which Rome was subsequently built." In Shabbath, ff. 51, 52, we
are told that "the princess brought with her one thousand different
kinds of musical instruments, and taught Solomon the chants to his
various idols." That there was some sense138
of doubt in Solomon's mind appears from the statement
in 2 Chron. viii. 11, that he deemed it unfit for his
bride to have her residence on Mount Moriah, a spot
hallowed by the presence of the Ark of God.201201 No trace of any such misgiving is found in the Book of Kings. That she
became a proselytess has been suggested, but it is most
unlikely. Had this been the case it would have been
mentioned in contrast with the heathenism of the fair
idolatresses who in later years beguiled the king's
heart. On the other hand, the princess, who was his
chief if not his earliest bride, does not seem to have
asked for any shrine or chapel for the practice of her
Egyptian rites. This is the more remarkable since
Solomon, ashamed of the humble cedar house of David—which
would look despicable to a lady who had lived
in "the gigantic edifices, and labyrinthine palace of
Egyptian kings"202202 "Seine Liebhaberei sind kostbare Bauten, fremde Weiber, reiche
Prachtentfaltung" (Kittel, ii. 160).—expended vast sums in building her
a palace which should seem worthy of her royal race.

From this time forward the story of Solomon becomes
more the record of a passing pageant preserved for us
in loosely arranged fragments. It can never be one
tithe so interesting as the history of a human heart
with its sufferings and passions. "Solomon in all his
glory," that figure so unique, so lonely in its wearisome
pomp, can never stir our sympathy or win our affection
as does the natural, impetuous David, or even the fallen,
unhappy Saul. "The low sun makes the colour."
The bright gleams and dark shadows of David's life are139
more instructive than the dull monotony of Solomon's
magnificence.

The large space of Scripture devoted to him in the
Books of Kings and Chronicles is occupied almost
exclusively with the details of architecture and display.
It is only in the first and last sections of his story that
we catch the least glimpse of the man himself. In the
central section we see nothing of him, but are absorbed
in measurements and descriptions which have a purely
archæological, or, at the best, a dimly symbolic significance.
The man is lost in the monarch, the monarch
in the appurtenances of his royal display. His annals
degenerate into the record of a sumptuous parade.

The fourth chapter of the Book of Kings gives us
the constitution of his court as it was in the middle of
his reign, when two of his daughters were already
married. It need not detain us long.

The highest officers of the kingdom were called
Sarim, "princes," a title which in David's reign had
been borne almost alone by Joab, who was Sar-ha-zaba,
or captain of the host. The son of Zadok203203 Perhaps rather "the grandson." He was the son of Ahimaaz
(comp. Gen. xxix. 5; Ezra v. 1, where son = grandson). is named first
as "the priest." The two chief secretaries (Sopherim)
were Elihoreph and Ahiah. They inherited the office
of their father Shavsha (1 Chron. xviii. 16),204204 Shisha and Shavsha are perhaps corruptions of Seraiah (2 Sam.
viii. 17). who had
been the secretary of David. It was their duty to
record decrees and draw up the documents of state.
Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, continued to hold the
office of annalist or historiographer (Mazkîr), the officer
known as the Waka Nuwish in Persian courts.205205 Comp. Esth. vi. 1. LXX., Isa. xxxvi. 3, ὁ ὑπομνηματογράφος 2 Sam. viii. 17, ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν ὑπομνημάτων. Jerome, "a commentariis."
Comp. Suet., Aug. 79, "qui e memoria Augusti." Azariah140
was over the twelve prefects (Nitzabim), or farmers-general,
who administered the revenues.206206 It is a somewhat ominous fact that netsib means properly an
ἐπιτειχισμός, a garrison in a hostile country. His brother
Zabud became "priest" and "king's friend."207207 The king's friend (2 Sam. xv. 37) seems to have been a sort of
confidential privy councillor (Prov. xxii. 11). Ahishar
was "over the household" (al-hab-Baith); that is,
he was the chamberlain, vizier, or mayor of the palace,
wearing on his shoulder the key which was the symbol
of his authority.208208Isa. xxii. 21. Adoniram or Adoram, who had been
tax-collector for David, still held that onerous and
invidious office,2092092 Sam. xx. 24. which subsequently, in his advanced
old age, cost him his life. Benaiah succeeded to the
chief-captaincy of Joab. We hear nothing more of
him, but the subsequent history shows that when David
gathered around him this half alien and wholly mercenary
force in a country which had no standing army,
he turned the sovereignty into what the Greeks would
have called a tyranny. As the only armed force in the
kingdom the body-guard overawed opposition, and was
wholly at the disposal of the king. These troops were
to Solomon at Jerusalem what the Prætorians were to
Tiberius at Rome.

The chief points of interest presented by the list are
these:—

1. First we mark the absence of any prophet. Neither
Nathan nor Gad is even mentioned. The pure ray of
Divine illumination is overpowered by the glitter of
material prosperity.

2. Secondly, the priests are quite subordinate. They
are only mentioned fifth in order, and Abiathar is named141
with Zadok, though after his deposition he was living
in enforced retirement.210210 Possibly this clause is an interpolation. The sacerdotal authority was
at this time quite overshadowed by the royal. In all
the elaborate details of the pomp which attended the
consecration of the Temple, Solomon is everything, the
priests comparatively nothing. Zadok is not even mentioned
as taking any part in the sacrifices in spite of
his exalted rank. Solomon acts throughout as supreme
head of the Church. Nor was this unnatural, since the
two capital events in the history of the worship of
Jehovah—the removal of the Ark to Mount Zion, and
the suggestion, inception, and completion of the building
of the Temple—were due to Solomon and David, not
to Zadok or Abiathar. The priests, throughout the
monarchy, suggest nothing, inaugurate nothing. They
are lost in functions and formal ceremonies. They are
but obedient administrative servants, and, so far from
protecting religion, they acquiesce with tame indifference
in every innovation and every apostasy. History has
few titles which form so poor a claim to distinction as
that of Levitic priest.

3. Further, we have two curious and significant
phenomena. The title "the priest" is given to Azariah,
who is first mentioned among the court functionaries.
Solomon had not the least intention to allow either
the priestly or the much loftier prophetic functions to
interfere with his autocracy. He did not choose that
there should be any danger of a priest usurping an
exorbitant influence, as Hir-hor had done in Egypt, or
Ethbaal afterwards did in the court of Tyre, or Thomas
à-Becket in the court of England, or Torquemada in
that of Spain. He was too much a king to submit to142
priestly domination. He therefore appointed one who
should be "the priest" for courtly and official purposes,
and should stand in immediate subordination to himself.

4. The Nathan whose two sons, Azariah and
Zabud, held such high positions, was in all probability
not Nathan the Prophet, who is rarely introduced
without his distinctive title, but Nathan, the younger
brother of Solomon, in whose line the race of David
was continued after the extinction of the elder branch
in Jeconiah. Here again we note the union of civil
with priestly functions. Zabud is called "a priest"
though he is a layman, a prince of the tribe of Judah.
Nor was this the first instance in which princes of the
royal house had found maintenance, occupation, and
high official rank by being in some sort engaged in the
functions of the priesthood. Already in David's reign
we find the title "priests" (Kohanim) given to the sons
of David in the list of court officials2112112 Sam. viii. 18. Even "Ira the Jairite" is called "a priest"
(2 Sam. xx. 26). An attempt has been made to explain the word away
because it obviously clashes with Levitic ordinances; but the word
"priest" could not be used in two different senses in two consecutive
lines. Dogmatic considerations have tampered with the obvious
meaning of the word. The LXX. omits it, and in the case of David's
sons calls them αὐλάρχαι. The A.V. renders it "chief officer." The
Vulgate wrongly refers it to Zadok (filius Sadoc sacerdotis). Movers
(Krit. Unters., 301 ff.) renders it "court chaplains." Already in
1 Chron. xviii. 17 we find that the title gave offence, and we read
instead, "And the sons of David were at the hand of the king" (see
Ewald, Alterthumsk, p. 276). Compare the title "Bishop of Osnaburg,"
borne by Frederick, Duke of York, son of George III.—"and David's
sons were priests." In this we trace the possible results
of Phœnician influences.

5. Incidentally it is pleasing to find that, though
Solomon put Adonijah to death, he stood in close and
kindly relations with his other brothers, and gave high143
promotions to the sons of the brothers who stood
nearest to him in age, in one of whom we see the
destined ancestor of the future Messiah.2122122 Sam. v. 14; Zech. xii. 12; Luke iii. 31.

6. The growth of imposing officialism, and its
accompanying gulf between the king and his people, is
marked by the first appearance of "the chamberlain"
as a new functionary. On him fell the arrangement
of court pageants and court etiquette. The chamberlain
in despotic Eastern courts becomes a personage of
immense importance, because he controls the right of
admission into the royal presence. Such officers, even
when chosen from the lowest rank of slaves—like
Eutropius the eunuch-minister of Arcadius,213213 The degraded and ominous apparitions of Sarisim (eunuchs) probably
began at the court of Solomon on a large scale, though the name
occurs in the days of David (1 Sam. viii. 15; 1 Chron. xxviii. 1). In
the Northern Kingdom we first hear of them in the harem of the
polygamous Ahab. or Olivier
le Daim, the barber-minister of Louis XI.—often absorb
no mean part of the influence of the sovereign with
whom they are brought into daily connexion. In the
court of Solomon the chamberlain stands only ninth in
order; but three centuries later, in the days of Hezekiah,
he has become the greatest of the officials, and "Eliakim
who was over the household" is placed before Shebna,
the influential scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the
recorder.2142142 Kings xviii. 18; Isa. xxii. 15.

7. Last on the list stands the minister who has
the ominous title of al-ham-Mas, or "over the tribute."
The Mas means the "levy," corvée, or forced labour.
In other words, Adoram was overseer of the soccagers.
Saul had required an overseer of the flocks, and David
a guardian of the treasury, but Adoram is not mentioned144
till late in his reign.2152152 Sam. xx. 24. He is not mentioned in 1 Chron. xxvii. 25-31. The gravamen of David's
numbering of the people seems to have lain in the
intention to subject them to a poll tax, or to personal
service, such as had become necessary to maintain the
expenses of the court. It is obvious that, as royalty
developed from the conception of the theocratic king
to that of the Oriental despot, the stern warning of
Samuel to the people of Israel was more and more
fulfilled. They had said, "Nay, but we will have a
king to reign over us, when Jehovah was their king";
and Samuel had told them how much less blessed was
bondage with ease than their strenuous liberty. He
had warned them that their king would take their
sons for his runners and charioteers and reapers and
soldiers and armourers, and their daughters for his
perfumers and confectioners; and that he would seize
their fields and vineyards for his courtiers, and claim
the tithes of their possession, and use their asses, and
put their oxen to his work. The word "Mas" representing
soccage, serfdom, forced labour (corvée; Germ.,
Frohndienst), first became odiously familiar in the days
of Solomon.

Solomon was an expensive king, and the Jewish
kings had no private revenue from which the necessary
resources could be supplied. In order to secure contributions
for the maintenance of the royal establishment,
Solomon appointed his twelve Prefects. The
list of them is incorporated from a document so ancient
that in several instances the names have dropped out,
and only "son of" remains.216216 This use of patronymics only is common among the Arabs, but
not in Scripture (Reuss, Hist. d. Isr., i. 423). The districts entirely
and designedly ignored the old tribal limits, which145
Solomon probably wished to obliterate. Ben-Hur
administered the hill country of Ephraim; Ben-Dekar
had his headquarters in Dan; Ben-Hesed had the
maritime plain; Ben-Abinadab the fertile region of
Carmel, and he was wedded to Solomon's daughter
Taphath;217217 If he was the son of David's elder brother (1 Sam. xvi. 8, xvii.
13) he was Solomon's first cousin. The materialistic or non-religious
element in Solomon seems to come out in the names of his only
known children. The element "Jehovah," afterwards so universal,
does not occur in them. Basmath, characteristically, means
"fragrant"; Taphath is perhaps connected with טָפַת, to go mincingly;
Rehoboam means "enlarger of the people." Baana, son of Ahilud, managed the plain of
Esdraelon; Ben-Geber the mountainous country east
of Jordan, including Gilead and Argob with its basaltic
towns; Ahinadab, son of Iddo, was officer in Mahanaim;
Ahimaaz in Naphtali (he was married to Solomon's
daughter Basmath, and was perhaps the son of Zadok);
Baanah, son of David's faithful Hushai, was in Asher;
Shimei, son of Elah, in Benjamin; Jehoshaphat in
Issachar. Geber administered alone the ancient dominions
of Sihon and Og. We see with surprise that
Judah seems to have been exempted from the burdens
imposed on the other districts, and if so the impolitic
exemption was a main cause of the subsequent jealousies.218218 The LXX. indeed reads καὶ νασὲφ εἷς ἐν γῇ Ἰούδα ("and he was
the only officer in the land of Judah"). But this would make thirteen
fiscal overseers. The Targum, adopting the same reading, says that
the thirteenth nitzab was to maintain the king in the intercalary month.

The chief function of these officers was to furnish
provisions for the immense numbers who were connected
with the court. The curious list is given of
the provision required for one day—thirty measures of
fine flour, sixty of bread,219219 Taking the cor at a low estimate this would amount to eighteen
thousand pounds of bread a day. ten fat oxen, twenty pasture146
oxen, and one hundred sheep, besides the delicacies of
harts, gazelles, fallow-deer, and fatted guinea-hens or
swans.2202201 Kings iv. 23, בַּרְבֻּרִים. Vulg., Avium altilium. Bunsen reckons that this would provide for
about fifteen thousand persons. In this there is nothing
extraordinary, though the number is disproportionate
to the smallness of the kingdom. About the same
number were daily supported by the kings of the great
empire of Persia.221221 Athen., Deipnos., iv. 146. We see how rapidly the state of
royalty had developed when we compare Solomon's
superb surroundings with the humble palace of Ishbosheth
less than fifty years earlier—a palace of which
the only guard was a single sleepy woman, who had
been sifting wheat in the noontide, and had fallen
asleep over her task in the porch.2222222 Sam. iv. 6 (LXX.).

Yet in the earlier years of the reign, while the people,
dazzled by the novel sense of national importance, felt
the stimulus given to trade and industry, the burden
was not painfully felt. They multiplied in numbers,
and lived under their vines and fig trees in peace and
festivity.223223 This description of agricultural felicity soon became an anachronism. But much of their prosperity was hollow
and shortlived. Wealth led to vice and corruption,
and in place of the old mountain breezes of freedom
which purified the air, the nation, like Issachar, became
like an ass crouching between two burdens, and bowing
its shoulders to the yoke in the hot valley of sensuous
servitude.

"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay!"

147

It is impossible to overlook the general drift of
Jewish royalty towards pure materialism in the days
of Solomon. We search in vain for the lofty spirituality
which survived even in the rough epoch of the
Judges and the rude simplicity of David's earlier reign.
The noble aspirations which throb in one Davidic
psalm are worth all the gorgeous formalism of the
Temple service. Amid the luxuries of plenty and the
feasts of wine on the lees there seems to have been
an ever-deeping famine of the Word of God.

There was one innovation, which struck the imagination
of Solomon's contemporaries, but was looked on
with entire disfavour by those who had been trained in
the old pious days. Solomon had immense stables for
his chariot horses (susim), and the swift riding horses
of his couriers (parashim).224224 Not "dromedaries" (A.V.). The ruins of his stables are still
pointed out at Jerusalem. He traded with Egypt for horses and
chariots which his merchants brought to Tekoa, and he then sold
them at a profit to the Hittite princes. The forty thousand stalls
of 1 Kings iv. 26 should doubtless be four thousand (2 Chron. ix. 25),
as Solomon only had fourteen hundred chariots (1 Kings x. 26). In
1 Kings x. 28 the meaning and reading is "as for the export of horses,
which Solomon got from Egypt even from Tekoa" (LXX., καὶ ὲκ
θεκουὲ), "the royal merchants used to fetch a troop of horses at a
price." The "linen yarn" of the A.V. is a mistranslation. It seems to have been
Solomon's ambition to equal or outshine "the chariots
of Pharaoh,"225225Cant. i. 9. with which his Egyptian queen had been
familiar at Tanis. This feature of his reign is dwelt
upon in the Arabian legends, as well as in all the
historical records of his greatness.2262261 Kings v. 6, ix. 19, x. 26, 28. Two of those passages are
omitted in the LXX. Comp. 1 Kings xvi. 9. But the maintenance
of a cavalry force had always been discouraged
by the religious teachers of Israel. The use of horses148
in war is forbidden in Deuteronomy.227227Deut. xvii. 16. Joshua had
houghed the horses of the Canaanites, and burned their
chariots at Misrephoth-maim. David had followed his
example. Barak had defeated the iron chariots of
Sisera, and David the splendid cavalry of Hadadezer
with the simple infantry of Israel.228228Josh. xi. 9; 1 Sam. viii. 11, 12; 2 Sam. viii. 4. The spirit of the
olden faithfulness spoke in such words as, "Some put
their trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will
trust in the name of the Lord our God." Solomon's229229 The energetic dislike to the importation or use of horses is also
found in Isa. ii. 7, xxx. 16, 17, xxxi. 1-3; Micah v. 10-14; Zech. ix. 10,
x. 5, xii. 4.
successors discovered that they had not gained in
strength by adopting this branch of military service in
their hilly and rocky land. They found that "a horse
is but a vain thing to save a man, neither shall he
deliver any man by his great strength."230230Psalm xxxiii. 17, lxxvi. 6, cxlvii. 10.

For a time, however, Solomon's strenuous centralisation
was successful. His dominion extended, at least
nominally, from Tiphzah (Thapsacus), beside the ford
on the west bank of the Euphrates, to the Mediterranean;
over the whole domain of the Philistines; and
from Damascus to "the river of Egypt," that is, the
Rhinokolura or Wady el-Areesh. The names Jeroboam
and Rehoboam imply that they were born in an epoch
of prosperity.231231 Compare Poludemos, Eurudemos. But the sequel proves that it was that
sort of empire which,

1961 Kings ix. 18. Here the "Q'rî," the marginal, or "read" text,
has Tadmor (i.e., Palmyra), as also in 2 Chron. viii. 4. But this
Tamar (Ezek. xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28) is "in the land" on the south
border. In the Chronicles Tadmor is the right reading, for the
chronicler is speaking of Hamath-Zobah and the north. It is not
at all unlikely that Solomon also built Tadmor (Josephus, Antt.,
VIII. vi. 1) to protect his commerce on the route to the Euphrates.

197 The forty-fifth psalm is supposed by old interpreters to have been
an epithalamium on this occasion, but was probably much later.
Perhaps notices like 1 Kings iii. 1-3 (the Egyptian alliance), the
admonition in 1 Kings ix. 1-9 and the luxury described in x. 14-29,
are meant as warning notes of what follows in xi. 1-8 (the apostasy),
9-13 (the prophecy of disruption), and 14-43 (the concluding disaster).

200 Schwab's Berakhoth, p. 252; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud,
p. 25. In Sanhedrin, ff. 21, 22, there is another trace of the dislike with
which the marriage (though not forbidden, Deut. xxiii. 7, 8) was
regarded: "When Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, Gabriel descended and fixed a reed in the sea. A sandbank formed
around
it on which Rome was subsequently built." In Shabbath, ff. 51, 52, we
are told that "the princess brought with her one thousand different
kinds of musical instruments, and taught Solomon the chants to his
various idols."

2112 Sam. viii. 18. Even "Ira the Jairite" is called "a priest"
(2 Sam. xx. 26). An attempt has been made to explain the word away
because it obviously clashes with Levitic ordinances; but the word
"priest" could not be used in two different senses in two consecutive
lines. Dogmatic considerations have tampered with the obvious
meaning of the word. The LXX. omits it, and in the case of David's
sons calls them αὐλάρχαι. The A.V. renders it "chief officer." The
Vulgate wrongly refers it to Zadok (filius Sadoc sacerdotis). Movers
(Krit. Unters., 301 ff.) renders it "court chaplains." Already in
1 Chron. xviii. 17 we find that the title gave offence, and we read
instead, "And the sons of David were at the hand of the king" (see
Ewald, Alterthumsk, p. 276). Compare the title "Bishop of Osnaburg,"
borne by Frederick, Duke of York, son of George III.

213 The degraded and ominous apparitions of Sarisim (eunuchs) probably
began at the court of Solomon on a large scale, though the name
occurs in the days of David (1 Sam. viii. 15; 1 Chron. xxviii. 1). In
the Northern Kingdom we first hear of them in the harem of the
polygamous Ahab.

216 This use of patronymics only is common among the Arabs, but
not in Scripture (Reuss, Hist. d. Isr., i. 423).

217 If he was the son of David's elder brother (1 Sam. xvi. 8, xvii.
13) he was Solomon's first cousin. The materialistic or non-religious
element in Solomon seems to come out in the names of his only
known children. The element "Jehovah," afterwards so universal,
does not occur in them. Basmath, characteristically, means
"fragrant"; Taphath is perhaps connected with טָפַת, to go mincingly;
Rehoboam means "enlarger of the people."

218 The LXX. indeed reads καὶ νασὲφ εἷς ἐν γῇ Ἰούδα ("and he was
the only officer in the land of Judah"). But this would make thirteen
fiscal overseers. The Targum, adopting the same reading, says that
the thirteenth nitzab was to maintain the king in the intercalary month.

219 Taking the cor at a low estimate this would amount to eighteen
thousand pounds of bread a day.

223 This description of agricultural felicity soon became an anachronism.

224 Not "dromedaries" (A.V.). The ruins of his stables are still
pointed out at Jerusalem. He traded with Egypt for horses and
chariots which his merchants brought to Tekoa, and he then sold
them at a profit to the Hittite princes. The forty thousand stalls
of 1 Kings iv. 26 should doubtless be four thousand (2 Chron. ix. 25),
as Solomon only had fourteen hundred chariots (1 Kings x. 26). In
1 Kings x. 28 the meaning and reading is "as for the export of horses,
which Solomon got from Egypt even from Tekoa" (LXX., καὶ ὲκ
θεκουὲ), "the royal merchants used to fetch a troop of horses at a
price." The "linen yarn" of the A.V. is a mistranslation.